Fake modeling scout tricked women for revealing photos, gets prison, NC officials say
A fake modeling scout threatened women who didn’t share revealing photos, North Carolina officials say.
Now, he will serve prison time in connection to the extortion case, according to the New Hanover & Pender County District Attorney’s Office.
Kevin Allen Kerney, 33, went online and posed as a modeling agent, prosecutors said Monday in a news release.
He tricked women “into feeling comfortable that they were dealing with a female who worked in the modeling industry,” Connie Jordan, assistant district attorney, said in the release.
During his scam, Kerney “solicited photographs in various states of dress and undress for potential modeling jobs,” officials say.
He said he would share those embarrassing photos with models’ relatives and friends — unless the women sent him more revealing pictures, according to the district attorney.
He made those threats to at least 14 aspiring models across the Tar Heel State who provided photos, according to prosecutors.
In New Hanover County, two of the three women he targeted were students at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, a college near the coast, according to Samantha Dooies, spokesperson for the district attorney’s office.
Kerney pleaded guilty Monday to three counts each of cyberstalking and felony extortion, the news release said.
He entered similar pleas on Jan. 8 in Guilford County, home to Greensboro, according to the release.
A UNC Greensboro student first brought the so-called “sextortion” scheme to authorities’ attention, The News & Observer previously reported.
Kerney, who is from Randolph County, is spending 13 to 25 months in prison, New Hanover County authorities say. While on three-year probation after being released from prison, he will be banned from social media and will get mental health exams tailored to sex offenders, according to officials.
“These young women were brave enough to come forward to make sure Mr. Kerney could not do this to anyone else,” Jordan said in the news release.
This story was originally published January 28, 2020 at 2:34 PM with the headline "Fake modeling scout tricked women for revealing photos, gets prison, NC officials say."
